Silas Siakor: landgrabbing in Liberia

In this podcast we dig into one of the poorest countries in the world: Liberia. Huge landgrabs are taking place above the heads of people that own and farm the land. The government allocated some 350.000 hectares to Sime Darby, a Malaysian multinational. But people only came to know about this deal when the company showed up to take their land. “Even though only 20.000 acres have now been taken for oil palm plantations, signs of widespread resentment and conflict are already rising”, according to Silas Siakor

Silas Siakor is a campaigner on human rights and environmental issues for the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia – which received a Goldman Environmental Prize for outstanding environmental achievements in Africa (2006). He was also awarded by the Alexander Soros Foundation for Extraordinary Achievements in Environmental and Human Rights Activism in 2012.

This podcast is part of a series produced by Firoze Manji for EJOLT, in collaboration with EJOLT partner CCS. All podcasts will be aired on his program AfrobeatRadio, broadcast by WBAI in the US to around 500.000 listeners

One comment

On November 21, 2013 at 1:10 pmAnnie Chikanjisaid:

I like listening to Mr. Siakor, he is such a good model for all the Campaigners on human rights. I used to think that Zambia had very little to do with land issues, but I was wrong. I would like our Government to invite Silas to come and present on one of the Land Conferences.